After the Bomb
by Angie White2
Summary: Post finale Scorpion. Had this idea brewing for a while. Potentially triggering content: suicide mentions.


Walter leaned back in his chair, sighing. He was up late again. Although, technically, it was very early in the morning. He'd been trying to find some, anyone, who would hire him for a job. Scorpion's funds were through the floor.

With a bristle of anger, he thought about Team Centipede. They'd been snatching jobs from under his nose, left and right. To make things worse, Homeland director Carson had cut his contract and replaced Scorpion with Centipede. Officially, it was because Centipede were more professional. Unofficially, it was because Carson had always hated Walter.

Walter had always figured that he was the irreplaceable member of Scorpion. Now he knew that actually, he was the replaceable one. Sylvester could run numbers far better than he could, Happy knew way more about mechanics and building stuff than he did, Toby was far superior with people than Walter could ever hope to be, and Paige was the glue. The glue that didn't just hold Scorpion together-she held Walter together. Without her, he fell apart. Just as Happy predicted.

He supposed that before they got together, that was not the case. Sure, he was crap with people, but they managed. But Walter had gotten a taste of real love and real happiness, and it was snatched from him.

_Experiment._

That's what Paige had called them. He thought they were a family. He didn't realise that he meant so little to Paige. Like he was a caged rat and she was the scientist running behavioral experiments on him.

Walter got up from his desk. He'd just had a final email pinging through, rejecting his offer. They said they found someone else. Centipede again.

"Stupid name for a team", he muttered to himself has he walked down the stairs. He stopped short at where he fell and had that dream.

That ridiculous, goddamned dream.

Yes, he dreamt that Florence was his wife. Yes, she kissed him. But he wished he could tell the team that she was hardly part of it, and it was Scorpion that saved him, and it was Paige who made them all work together.

He loved Scorpion. He loved every member. Walter hadn't felt such loneliness since was a child, so completely alone, with nobody to understand him, and the one person who did, Megan, was dying. Scorpion was a family he made.

He wished he could take everything back.

He walked into the kitchen. He had nothing. Truly, nothing, and no one. Loneliness and misery pulled at his heart and made his stomach feel like lead. He only had Cabe left, and Cabe had Allie. It hurt to see them together. He had nobody.

Florence had moved to Germany, not that she was ever really part of the team. He hadn't seen her since the Gettleman pitch. She only helped out. Walter didn't particularly miss her.

No jobs, no family, no friends, no Paige, no Ralph.

Time for plan B.

Walter opened the kitchen cupboard and reached into the back for a bottle of pills and the bottle of vodka.

He'd never really understood suicide until he lost everyone he loved. He'd been putting it off for weeks, hoping things would get better. Now, he wanted it all to stop. Things would never get better.

Silently, he cursed Paige. He would never had felt like this 3 years ago. She'd helped him mature emotionally, so he could process feelings, and now he felt too much. What use are feelings if you feel like this?

"_Fifteen, sixteen years old?"_

She didn't realise how much that hurt him.

Holding the pills and the vodka, he walked slowly back up the stairs, glancing around at his beloved garage one last time. So many good memories. But they hurt.

He sat on his bed, staring at the spot where Paige slept. One by one, he took every pill in the bottle, washing them down with vodka, burning through his throat. He never usually drank, but he knew this was the best way to achieve what he wanted.

Already feeling fuzzy, he lay down, one hand on Paige's pillow, inhaling her scent. He had been sleeping on the sofa, wanting to preserve things exactly as Paige left them.

As he felt the drugs pulling him under, Walter smiled at the memory, taking the image of Paige's smiling face with him.


End file.
